


click click clack

by foxika (kylonaberrie)



Series: foxy asides [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Clone Trooper Culture (Star Wars), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mind Control, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27640667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kylonaberrie/pseuds/foxika
Summary: The blackouts are getting worse. Fox did the unthinkable. Dogma wants to help.
Relationships: Dogma & CC-1010 | Fox, Dogma/CC-1010 | Fox
Series: foxy asides [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2036353
Comments: 2
Kudos: 38





	click click clack

**Author's Note:**

> i still dont know how to write fox romantically but the discord wanted this and idk i thought it was sweet
> 
> uhhhh... chose not to use archive warnings bc ymmv on graphic violence
> 
> but like. i get a little gnarly re: the corrie blackouts and the shit palps makes them do so be warned

After Tailor leaves the room you see Dogma standing quiet in the doorway, holding his bucket nervously to his chest, both hands, lifting each finger in turn in a nervous ripple. He meets your eyes, solemn and scared and something else harder to place. You jerk your head to beckon him closer, and the door whooshes shut behind him.

This is your usual private room, the one Tailor, or a friend she doesn't want to name, fixed the security camera in to short out via remote control, and you know she turns it off when you're in here. Your privacy wouldn't be the only thing at stake if it got out, the sort of things that happen to you. That keep happening to you. That happened to you again.

Dogma approaches your bed cautiously, still doing the nervous little finger thing,  _ click-click-clack. _ 'What happened?' you ask him. 'Tailor said you refused to speak to anyone but me.'

Dogma flinches, but then he looks at you-- not in the eyes, Dogma doesn't do that-- this dark lowered gaze that speaks volumes as much as it tells you jack shit. He's not afraid of you. He's afraid for you.

'Dogma, please,' you repeat when he doesn't say anything. 'I have to know what happened.'

He squeezes his eyes tight shut, silent for several moments more until he opens them. 'You don't remember.' It's not a question.

'No,' you confirm. 'I don't.'

His eyes go up to the black plastic dome set into the ceiling. 'It's disabled,' you tell him. 'One of the few private rooms on base.'

'Don't they notice?' he asks.

'We only turn it off when we need to. Nobody's said anything about the glitches yet. Tell me what happened.'

He braces himself again, eyes screwed shut, grip tight,  _ click-click-clack.  _ You wait.

'You killed someone,' he says eventually, carefully, looking at the blankets. 'Right in front of me. I don't know who.'

You've killed a lot of people. It's everything else about this that worries you.

'And then,' he continues, tone pitching up nervously, 'you tried to shoot me.'

Your heart plummets. Oh god.

He looks at your face for a moment, clearly upset, swallows, looks down. There's a slight shake to his shoulders. You're too put together for the room to be crashing down around you, but it feels like it ought to, maybe, this sheer dread you've got clenching at your chest.

You-- you would never.

But you did.

You're already a  _ vod _ killer. You've already done terrible things in the name of your job. Brought down deserters, when you were called to. You're already the worst thing you could become.

Why is it such a stretch to think you would begin to truly lose it? That you could hold back the tide of blood to the shoreline of what you're ordered to do?

How many of your brothers have you hurt when you black out and can't think, can't remember what you're doing?

No. Tailor would have told you. Tailor wouldn't put up with this. But it still happened this time.

And it happened to Dogma, who you'd sworn to Rex to protect for as long as you could. You don't know what he did, or failed to do, or what broke down within him and started showing on the outside. You didn't ask. The less you know, the safer you all are. But he's a model trooper, by the book, eager to please, gets everything you ask of him done and more with time to spare.

Desperate not to fuck up his second chance.

He has gotten in several fights, one of which you had to break up personally. But it's not like he's the first, with the pressure you're all under, the non-stop work, living with electricity and water and food and soap and cigarette rations just to fit within the budget they saddle you with, surviving on little sleep and surrounded by people who think you're little more than furniture. You don't blame anyone for venting.

But you never,  _ ever, _ hurt your men. Not by your own hand. They have to live through enough already, in this hell deployment. That's the thing, as much as you know it's just something you tell yourself so you can live with it-- none of the  _ vode _ you've killed were  _ yours. _

Something breaks in you, quietly, looking at Dogma. He looks deathly solemn.

'I subdued you,' he continues, 'And brought you back here. Most of the injuries you sustained were from me.' He bites his lower lip.

_ 'Ni ceta,' _ you breathe, with nothing else to say.

He actually looks at you at that, some terrible startled look in his eyes. 'I thought you did it on purpose, sir.'

And your heart breaks. 'No,' you insist. 'Never. I--' You take a moment to organise what you're going to say. Don't make it about you. 'I know it doesn't excuse it, but I want you to know I would never. I didn't know what I was doing. There's-- blackouts, Dogma. All of command get them. Sometimes other people from time to time. We don't know what causes them, but when I tried to investigate Tailor turned up with a warning carved into her chest.' He covers his mouth in horror. 'We don't know what we do, when they happen. We just know it's bad. And I am so, so sorry.'

'It's not your fault,' he says faintly from behind his hand. His eyes are huge. 'I'm sorry, Commander--'

'You have nothing to be sorry for. I'm just relieved you're alright.' You put your hand on his, on top of his helmet resting on your bed. 'I won't set up a shift with you again, if that would make you feel safer.'

'No,' ’ he says quickly. ‘I-- I won’t have anyone else hurt on my behalf.’

It sounds so much like you. You just look at each other.

‘Besides,’ he says, swallowing, hand not under yours tapping nervously with all fingers,  _ tip tip tip tip tip. _ ‘We know I can take you down if necessary.’

You pause as something occurs to you. ‘You took me down in single combat.’

He blushes. ‘I really didn’t have any other choice--’

‘I’m not mad, Dogma, I’m impressed. It’s been a long time since anyone’s done that.’

He blushes deeper, the tips of his ears going red. ‘Oh. Well-- I really think that if anything we should be partnered more. Because of that.’

You squeeze his fingers. A part of you wants to do what you always do, not let your men be noble, keep them safe. But he’s got a point. If you need backup, it should be someone who can handle you. You guess you’re going interviewing on the sparring mats once you’re healed; you don’t want to make Dogma the sole person responsible, even though the part of you that knows yourself knows he would want you to.

The thought of having to field yourself to stop yourself hurting anybody makes you feel sick. But there’s nothing you can do about it. You wish there was. You wish a lot of things.

_ Next time I can aim younger, _ the words carved into the plane of Tailor’s chest said, underlined several times. You found her low on blood and collapsed on the floor in her quarters, the scalpel still inches from her hand, half out of her mind, just with it enough to call for help.

Fuck. ‘I don’t know if that’s a good idea. Whoever’s responsible-- they’re watching us. They knew when we started investigating. I think they might know if we take precautions as well.’ A lump has formed hard in your throat. So your options are to kill your men personally, or to put a target on their backs.

Dogma bites his lower lip. ‘Permission to speak freely, sir?’

‘Of course.’

‘You already tried to kill me. What are they going to do? Make someone try to kill me?’

Fuck. He’s smarter than you are. ‘They could hurt someone else.’

_ ‘You _ could hurt someone else.’

You hate it, but he’s right. And stubborn. And there’s no easy way out.

‘So you’re volunteering.’

‘Better me than anyone else.’

‘Why?’ He’s reminding you a fuckton of yourself right now, but he’s not a commander. He’s not even a ranking officer. His job is to do what’s asked of him to the best of his ability, to take care of himself so he can continue to do so, to have his squadmates’ backs. You’re the one whose job it is to keep every last one of these bastards safe.

He looks at you, frozen, something breaking quietly behind his eyes. ‘Sir...’

He can’t seem to say anything else, just finally breaks through the skin of his lower lip with one of his canines. He reaches up to catch the blood, blushing, ducking his head. His other hand is still under yours.

A few things coalesce. The hit to your own worth you took not minutes ago. The manner of his arrival. ‘It’s okay, Dogma. I tried to kill you. We can be on our own shit lists together.’

‘I don’t blame you. You weren’t aware of what you were doing.’

‘And I don’t blame you for what you did before you came here. I don’t know what happened and I don’t know the circumstances.  _ Cin vhetin, vod.’ _

He looks at you startledly. ‘You weren’t informed?’

‘No. Rex just asked me to get you out.’

He opens his mouth and closes it again. ‘And you don’t care.’

‘Honestly? The less I know the easier it is to pull off a reassignment. And no, I don’t, and I won’t unless it becomes relevant to your safety or service.’

He does the open-shut thing a few more times, blood trickling down his face from where he got distracted from stemming it. 'I-- I think it is relevant, sir.'

'How so?'

'I made some mistakes. Bad ones.' He finally takes his hand away from yours to hug his elbows.

He's not the first person you've gone over this with, and he won't be the last, but you think in this case, he really means it. You cut yourself off from your usual response, and say, 'I've killed  _ vode.' _

He looks up, alarmed. 'Because of the blackouts?'

'No. Because I was ordered to. And I did it. I did it awake and cognisant of what I was doing.'

He presses a hand to his mouth, looking away.

'Whatever you've done, Dogma, you're still one of my men. Even if you're a fucking brother-killer.'

There are people you wouldn't say that to. There are people who murder their  _ vode _ in cold blood. But you've gotten to know Dogma, the past few months. You know whatever he did, he had a reason. You know an  _ aruetii _ wouldn't offer to throw himself in front of your barrel to save the family he betrayed. But you won't tell him any of that. He'll just protest it, that he's one of the ones who shouldn't be trusted.

'Now, if you're in danger because of what you did, or if it's having other impacts upon you, I want to know about it so I can help you. But you don't have to explain yourself. You don't have to defend yourself. You're a good man, I'm glad to have you, and what you're offering to do is amazing. I don't want you to think you're worth less than the others, or have that influencing your decisions. You're worth just as much as all the rest of us. You deserve to live just as much as the rest of us.'

He keeps his head turned away as tears begin to well in his eyes, threatening to spill, hand pressed tight over his mouth. He quickly gets up and walks to the other side of the small room, back to you, shoulders hunched and trembling, both hands pressed to his face.

You give him his space, looking away from his too-thin figure and finding interest in the ceiling. Unbidden, you find yourself thinking about yourself, about him-- about how you would have reacted to those words at nine, or ten, finding it hard to conceptualise. You don't know if you would call what you felt back then worthlessness.

It's not worth digging. It never is.

What about what you're feeling now?

You sigh and run a hand through your hair. From the corner of your eye you see Dogma flinch. 'Not aimed at you,  _ vod,' _ you assure him, as your heart twangs. Fuck, what does he have attached to that? ‘Come on, come back over.’ You don’t want to intrude on his space, but it’s a hard place to retrieve yourself gracefully from, and you hate to see him acting like it’s something that needs to be hidden. He wipes his eyes and comes back to your bedside.

‘So?’ he asks. ‘My offer still stands.’ Hands back on his helmet.  _ Click-click-clack. _ Eyes wet and earnest.

You think about it. You think of turning him away for his own safety, to avoid another incident like with Tailor, god forbid, one of the too-young shinies, bleeding out on the floor. You think about how any one of you could black out and kill any other.

You think about how scary it’s been. How tired you are.

You think about your childhood, hiding when you didn’t want to face the others, to face reality: hiding in cupboards, in lockers, in the vents, in the tiny architectural quirks only you knew about, the place with the overhang where the rain still whipped cold around outside but didn’t touch you.

You think about killing Dogma, your blaster aimed true to his helmetless temple. You think about how easy it would be, for the other you who lives in the blackouts.

You think about killing one of the too-young shinies, skinny like Dogma and stupid unlike Dogma, unhardened kids that don’t fucking deserve this.

You think about how none of you deserve this.

You think about whether or not you want to keep hiding.

‘Yeah,’ you say, voice rougher than you expected. ‘Yeah. Okay.’

You take his hand and reach up with your other to wipe the blood from his chin. ‘But not only you. I’m getting you backup. This shouldn’t be your responsibility alone.’

‘Our responsibility,’ Dogma says, and blushes, nervous. ‘It’s-- It’s not yours alone, either, sir.’

Well, fuck.

You lean forward to snake a hand in his hair and press his forehead to yours. He’s stiff at first but doesn’t pull back, and then he rests into it, his face warm near your own.

_ ‘Vor entye, vod.’ _

Thank you.


End file.
